Viet Cafe.. New Cafe in Town

This is the latest cafe in town.. Viet Cafe. It's been opened only a week. Cook is a friend's brother. That's how I got to know about it. Didn't notice it earlier even though I pass the place everyday cos this place has 'housed' a few eatery, the last being a Malay food joint. One tends to be blind to such things...

This is the traditional Vietnamese Roll, with its transparent skin. Siah said this one requires one to acquire the taste for it. But I think it's okay. The sauce goes well with it. Located in the compound of Asas Dunia along Jlana Kanchut, you've to make an effort to look out for this cafe. Parking is a little complicated as the compound is rather small. But you can park at the adjacent empty lot. And if that is full, you can always park further down the road.

This is rice with stir fried beef. I like anything with beef. But this particular dish is quite appetizing because the rice is also lightly fried in egg and probably garlic. Gives it that nice smell. This is Siah's order and she says the rice is good enough to eat by itself.

Huan's order... Thai Fried Rice. We could smell the food as soon as the plate landed on the table. Also nice but it's not something I would order since I wanted something different. I ta-pau one of the same back for Son. A little info about the cook. He's worked before in a hotel and also for a couple of years in a Vietnamese restaurant overseas. His food is quite pleasing on the palate.

Another version of Vietnamese Spring Rolls... this one is deep fried. All 3 of us like this. I also ta-pau one back and Other Half sapu all finish. Overall, I think the food here is not too bad. It's different cos it's probably the first Vietnamese restaurant. I am always looking out for something new... so this new place fits the bill quite nicely for me.

Last but not least of the orders... gu-bak kway teow! I'm a sucker for beef soup kway-teow. When I heard that the Cafe serves that, I immediately made up m mind to pay it a visit. The soup is rather light... beef smell is not strong. But I supposed that also helps in making the food quite light on the stomach. 8)

I'm happy that Alor Setar is getting another restaurant serving food other than just the usual. I'd definitely be going back to try their Vietnamese coffee... saw one other patron ordering it and I thought it looked rather quaint, waiting for the coffee to drip slowly into the glass below.

FaceBook... Is it a good thing??

I am on FaceBook (FB) and so are countless numbers of my friends. Ever since I jumped onto the bandwagon, I've been able to reconnect with so many old friends, much to my joy. It's always nice to have good old friends popping up in our lives every now and then! One of my life's joys. And these days, it enables me 'know' what's going on in their lives.

So, FB is good... but is it all good? For the above reason, I'd give a resounding yay! But looking at how the young people use it, I get the feeling that they project their emo-ness way too much. Perhaps that is the way they fish for remarks and feedbacks. A whole new generation is growing up through more of a sanitized and digital interaction rather than face-to-face one. And I wonder whether we'll be getting a gen who might not be comfortable with real communication in a face-to-face situation. Or whether they are capable of true empathy and understanding for others. Screen interaction after all is done behind the the screen with a keyboard. What you see may not be what you get.

Already researchers are questioning the jumping onto the 'digital protests' of treatment on people like Aung Sung Su Kyi. Some wonder whether clicking a support or writing a supporting comment makes them feel good.. I don't know. I tend to think that if one is not passionate about a cause, he'll not give a second look.

But coming back to interaction on FB... such kinds of interactions don't quite need you to be giving full attention too, cos you can be multitasking while FBing... which might create in real life this same surreal feeling...

And on FB too, it's mostly about me and me and more me. Some studies have labelled this as infantilizing of the mind. You know how we labelled the Terrible Twos.. A Terrible Two's needs must be met immediately... and everything is about them! Anyway, it results in selfish and attention deficient people which translates to short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity.

So, is FB good? Guess like everything else, there are the pros and cons.

Capping SPM subjects...

.. at 10 so they say and it's official; with a caveat. Those who take Pendidikan Islam will be allowed 11, at least for another year before they too will see it being capped at 10. The 6 core subjects remain. That means a pure Science students will have the option of only one extra subject after taking into considerations Bio, Physics, Chem and Add Maths. So probably we'll be seeing the demise of many of the Elective subjects in time to come!

Would this create a level playing ground for all the students? I doubt it. First the quality of the 'A' in our SPM is still in doubt. In fact we'd be getting more students with straight A(s). Only difference is now they will be capped at 10. And it becomes more difficult to tell the really good ones apart cos they'll fade into the sea of straight A(s). In the end, this might promote mediocrity.

Hearsays have it that the MOE is considering introducing A+, A- and A2... something like that. So instead of having a two-tiered A, there'll be 3. Why don't they simplify things and just have a simple grading system? In the mean time, have more stringent criteria. But some quarters are saying this will not happen cos a particular group of students will be affected... crutch mentality still persist here.

Capping the number of subjects is actually a good thing cos it might mean less stress on a student. Parents won't pressure their kids to take more subjects. Students might actually not be so stressed out. Some time may actually be freed for them to pursue interests outside the curriculum, if they don't use it up on the computer. Their insane existence might actually become quite sane. 8) All quite attractive prospects.

Incidentally, in this ever changing education landscape of our country... History looks set on being reintroduced as a subject to the primary kids again. Once upon a time, long, long time ago, I learned it in Primary School. Then by the time I was done with my Primary schooling, it morphed a couple of times. Alam dan Manusia... a few morphs later, it went off the radar. Now, it's coming back.

And I thought the general consensus is the kids have too many papers to handle as it is... yet we are still adding on. What is important at Primary level would the the reading, speaking and writing skills. Those flers up in the MOE should start thinking of working from those 3 skills and incorporating Science, Maths, History, etc.. into the learning of the 3 skills. Teach them to fish instead of giving the kids the fish. Anyway, I have digressed.

Nasi Lemak Ong..

This is another popular makan place... you can tell by the long queue during lunch time. Nasi Lemak Ong is no stranger to many Alor Setarians.

It used to be located behind Wisma Sentosa some years back.

This is it's location now, at Fresh Cafe. At night, Fresh Cafe is also well-known for its tomyam. Anyway, Nasi Lemak Ong's popularity can be gauged by how the outstation Alor Setarians gush about it.

I went there with friends for a take-away recently. The signature queue is still there. By the time we had packed our food, the queue had gone even longer! Notice the poster? That's from Astro. This nasi lemak joint has been featured on Astro Food Channel!

And patrons are spoilt for choices here... from huge prawns to deep-fried ikan keli (catfish)..

..and beef, mutton curry... you'll have difficulty choosing. Rice (either white or lemak) is served on banana leaves which gives it a nice smell.

It's open every day for lunch except Wednesdays...

The Age of Innocence Gone...

On Saturday, my lil gal, being helpful, 'rearranged' her papa's home office. That was when she came upon 2 letters she wrote to the Tooth Fairy last year. This is the first one...

Anyway, what transpired between father and daughter after she found the letters... BTW, her tooth was also intact...

With surprise and traces of disappointment she told her papa... "That's the letter I wrote to the Tooth Fairy!" The papa was momentarily speechless but quickly mumbled something about the Tooth Fairy leaving the letters there. But this gal of mine was not fooled. She had made her own conclusion.

"There is no Tooth Fairy. Papa is the Tooth Fairy." With that another chapter of her kiddy years has come to a close.... one segment of her age of innocence coming to a close. 8(

And later in the evening, as we were on our way out for dinner... she said this to us... "I told my friends about the Tooth Fairy. And now it's not true!" It was said with a tinge of chagrin and 'shame'.... We used to place some money whenever she lost a teeth and it was something that she really looked forward to. We did that to Son too until he outgrew it. In those days, we had the RM1 'gold' coin and it was much more fun!

This is how the 2 letters came about. Other Half and I were supposed to conduct the exchange... tooth for money but fell asleep and did not manage to change her tooth for the usual RM2. We got up early the next morning... remembered, tried to exchange but she was faster. She had gotten up, all excited and headed straight to the chair where she had placed her 'fallen' tooth, expecting to find the usual RM2. She was really crestfallen that morning... and on that evening itself, wrote 2 letters... The second one was for good measure, just in case the Tooth Fairy could not understand English... so my 7-year-old dug out her newly learned skills from school and wrote this... in 3 languages! LOL!

It was so cute that we kept both her letters... and on Saturday she found them. All this while, she thought the Tooth Fairy had her letters... for the following morning, she would happily tell us that the Tooth Fairy had left RM2 for her.

Our little girl is growing up.... the lands of fairies and magic are slowly being replaced by the worries of life; school, exams, friends... the list will grow by the year as the magic and wonderment of childhood fades into the background. Kinda sad for us in a way....

Chronicles of a Saturday School Day

Saturday Replacement School again! Yesterday's was to replace the holidays we are about to take for Hari Raya Puasa. We've been having lots of these.... the replacement school days on Saturdays. We had 2 (I think) to replace the extended holidays taken for Chinese New Year earlier. You see when the Ministry accommodates one group, they have to start accommodating all. In this increasingly more open and connected society of ours, it's hard not to be consistent cos everyone will bising... and then they start digging in the closet when they are unhappy...

So, there I was, stuck in school on a morning.... when I'd rather be elsewhere. I could name a few; my comfy bed, the paddy fields, the market, breakfast in town... anywhere except school. But I had to drag myself up from my bed in the morning.... 8(

So, how was school? First thing in the morning, the Muslim students were herded to the open hall for a ceramah. I pity them cos they had to sit through more than 2 hours of 'ear-bombing'. The few non-Muslim students sat in the Moral Room... presumably thinking through their moral values. It's usually like this... separate 'programmes'.. No! I mean programme for one group, sit-around for another. You tell, me, how can we ever integrate when the school consciously 'dis-integrate'.

Two hours and a recess later, the Form 3(s) and Form 5(s) were herded to different places again... for more ceramahs.. this time academic-related ones... the integrated type. You tell me, why have Saturday school when classes don't quite run? My son always tells me that they are bored to death whenever they have to sit through a ceramah... can be on issues like drugs, smoking, how to study smart. But after a certain time, no amount of talking actually registers. The mind gets saturated. Studies show we can concentrate for about 40 minutes. Studies also show that boys find it difficult to sit still for so long cos biologically they are not made to do that. Once upon a time, the menfolks were hunters.. and hunters don't sit down. They run around chasing their hunt for the day... go read up about the corpus callosum and the role it plays in the differences between the male and female traits.

We talk about churning out 'smart' students but I wonder whether what we're doing is working smart (for ourselves) or dumbing down our students.

The Forms 1, 2 and 4, classes were supposed to run as usual after recess. Here lies another problem, more than half the school is absent.... Saturday school! Might as well work our term holidays around the festivals rather than have all this. A waste of time and resources....

WMCAS Website...

This is what Other Half and I have been up to for the past week or so. Setting up our church website with a blog incorporated.. He did all the layout stuff while I worked on the input and content. We've learned about Joomla, Fantastico. And an old friend gave a lending hand by directing us to what to use. I am still amazed by how connected we have all become through applications like FB and our ACS Forum cos it was through these two that we've reconnected after so many years. And an old friendship like that has come back to assist us this time around!

Anyway, now I am learning from him the layout part. Earlier on, my job was to fill up the pages and write... But the learning curve becomes much less steeper when there is someone to teach. 8) The site is up and running now. It still needs some work but we'll have to wait for approval from above. 8)

It's been kinda fun... in a way, us working together for this. Anyway, it took a while for this to come to fruition. We were sitting on it for quite a while because of my apprehension that we may not be able to find people to help maintain it. But in the end, we decided that it has to start, we have to give it a try. So, Other Half got the domain name and paid up all the necessary fees....

So, here it is... finally, the WMCAS Website!

The Demise of PPSMI..

I can actually try to look at the bigger picture about this whole issue... but the wastage and flip flop manner in which our gahmen carries itself does make one wonder whether this reversal is a populist decision. By Muhyiddin's (MOE) own admission, only 19.2% of secondary teachers and 9.96% primary teachers teaching Maths and Science are proficient in English shows very glaringly how inept the MOE has been in tackling the problem of delivery and also what I think is the main problem... the competency of teachers.

I am sure studies conducted also do not take into consideration students' attitude towards their own education these days. For many of my students, I would say that it doesn't quite matter what the medium of instruction is. You can teach in Swahili cos they're basically just not bothered. And such students are the majority today. But for the better students, Math and Science in English had actually done them good.

But the MOE think that with more contact hours in English and the introduction of literature and drama, grammar, composition would make a difference. Or the hiring more retired English teachers for that matter. They should have hired competent retired teachers to teach Math and Science in Primary School at the start of the PPSMI. That would have probably made a world of difference.

And now the Deputy PM says the achievements of students in Maths and Science has seen a decline ever since the use of English as a medium of instruction. Passing percentage has remained almost he same. There is no drastic drop or rise... so if at the global stage our standing has dropped something like 10 places, I don't think English as the medium of instruction is the issue. Why can't the people up there just see the root of the problem... our schools today are staffed by incompetent teachers... not from the language point of view..... I am tempted to go into the synonyms of stupid.... idiots... morons... imbeciles.... to describe our politicians.... But for now the, ignorance will suffice! Either that or they're just simply ostriches who refused to take their heads out of the sand!

I taught (and am still at it) English in rural and suburban schools before the pre-PPSMI and during PPSMI. I could see improvement in my Form 1 students this year. They are supposed to have been taught completely in English. They're grasp of language is even better than my Form 2. But now, because Manek Urai is just around the corner and also some other reasons, we'll never quite know whether coming to a middle ground might have been better for the country in the longer run.

English.. it's a language we need to master. We were on par once upon a time. Then we lost that edge and started languishing. And then the effort to try put back a little of that shine from the past.... before we can even actually see results, it's taken off again. I am not saying that Maths and Science should be taught in English.... maybe if they remove PPSMI but truly want to upgrade our English... make a pass in English compulsory in SPM, perhaps? The Minister says they are mulling that... but knowing how they bow to pressure groups, that may just be a statement to justify and appease.

The gahmen says English is important... even acknowledges it... but the things they do don't seem to be able to arrest its decline. Maybe it's time they turn their attention to competency of teachers.... yet another product of mediocrity in the years of NEP.